Axie Infinity: More Profitable than Pokemon? (AXS)

Nintendo’s Pokemon property is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, pulling in more than $100B since its inception 25 years ago. In just the past year, several collectible Pokemon cards have sold for more than $100K.

Of course, Nintendo (NTDOY) itself will be lucky to make a fraction of the value these collectibles accrue over time…But, what if the cards were sold on an online market which both guaranteed their authenticity and a 4% cut for Nintendo? What if the cards had characteristics that made them even more desirable?

This concept describes a very real phenomenon: Axie Infinity.

Axie Infinity is a blockchain-based trading and battling game that allows players to collect, breed, raise, battle and trade token-based creatures known as Axies.

Underlying consumer Mentions for this unique game demonstrate a truly incredible rise in popularity, with daily volume going from <100 to the 1000's in a matter of months.

Each ‘Axie’ represents a non-fungible token on the Ethereum blockchain, which can be leveled up and bred to produce new Axies using two special governance tokens called ‘Axie Infinity Shards’ (AXS) and ‘Small Love Potion’ (SLP).

This might sound insane, but it’s already proven to be incredibly lucrative -- Delphi Digital, the team behind the Axie protocol, is on pace to clear $150M in revenue this month, up from just $3M in July.

'Axie Infinity Shards' (AXS) also serves as the governance token, which provides investors with a direct stake in the success of the game as well as voting rights.

Despite the recent woes of the crypto market at large, AXS is leading the charge higher, up +150% in the past week.

Crypto-specific cashtag chatter for AXS tokens show similarly impressive growth, with investor mentions trending  +2145% QoQ on a 7-day moving average.

If you had bought just $1000 worth of AXS following the initial launch in November 2020, your investment would be well over $300K today…Not a bad return, but who's to say that the game won't continue to grow?